26/02/2009

OK, so I finally did something that might actually help me promote my stuff: I got the Yellow page (sort of) high up in the google rankings (for a while). And this is how:

1. Make simple + entertaining video advert for [product/service].

2. Upload vid to youtube - include main keywords in title and also in description, plus try to give it a title that sounds interesting. Also, obviously INCLUDE A LINK TO YOUR SITE, duh!

3. Mass-bookmark the page with Onlywire or summat else, or you can just post links to the page on forums or other blogs or whatever you want (but try not to be an annoying spammer ...)

4. Register a free account at .TK (if you use that link I get 'virtual fish'!!!), and pick a free domain name to redirect to your youtube page.

5. Go to Browsershots.org and request all browser (102) screenshots of your URL (eg. http://www.yellowad.tk) This should get you probably around 50 views (half of them will probably fail) - you can do this every day if you want, or even more often. The reason you can't link to the youtube page directly is because browsershots limits the requests for 1 particular domain (www.youtube.com) per day, and it hits the limit straight away.

It seemed to take about a day for the vid to start appearing in youtube searches and a further day to appear in google seaches - eg. a few days ago it was #4 for the keywords "yellow funny t-shirts" on google, and #4 for keywords "funny t-shirts" on youtube, which took about 2 days from when I posted it ... but apparently this doesn't last, coz now its well down on google, and a bit down on youtube. Damn.

The reason it works at first is because streaming video is apparently the most viewed thing on the internet, so google servers crawl youtube loads of times a day, whereas it might take months for them to get around to crawling your actual site. Getting automated hits will make your vid higher in the Youtube ratings (I think), and bookmarking the page on Onlywire makes the googlebot think your page is more popular since more other pages have linked to it.

This is all really basic stuff and it will probably backfire on me somehow with my luck, but I know the pro internet marketers do stuff like this all the time, just on a bigger scale.

BTW, anyone who watches the vid is seeing your advert before your site, so you can easily make sure only the very best bits are emphasized (hence only my favourite T's are featured in the ad).

I found out how to do this ages ago which is when I first head about Onlywire, but now I've got round to applying it, I have my (and your) proof that it actually works! :) Plus I added the twist of using the browser preview site to get automated hits, thereby further pushing it up the listings.

Actually, here's the link to the vid I watched about it back last autumn: BOOM!

You can check out my ad here, and listen to the my R&B remix backing-track of "Enter Sandman" by Metallica (it's just a loop at the moment, but I'm gunna make a whole song eventually ... I just needed some interesting music for the advert).

Another good thing about .TK + browsershots.org is that .TK free domains expire after 90 days without 25 hits, but if you ever get near that threshold, you can easily top up the hits in seconds.

And another thing about browsershots is you can get hundreds of (undetectably) automated plays on your band's myspace profile per day (if you can be bothered). Just register for free, or set up a free .TK redirect domain to get around the screenshot request limit on the domain www.myspace.com.